Cherchez La Femme
by toomanycats
Summary: "Regret is insight that comes a day too late." Brenda/Sharon UST. Follows a pair of oneshots I wrote like a hundred thousand years ago: 'Black and White' and 'Smile'.
1. Chapter 1

Title: Cherchez la femme [1/?]  
Pairing: Brenda/Sharon UST  
Spoilers: None  
Rating: T  
Disclaimer: All recognisable characters and situations are the property of their respective creators and owners. No copyright infringement is intended.

Summary: "Regret is insight that comes a day too late."

A/N: So this is the first part of the somewhat angsty follow up to a pair of oneshots I wrote like a hundred thousand years ago: _Black and White_ and _Smile_. I'd probably recommend reading those first but hey, feel free to wing it. Title inspired by Telanu's wonderful Closer AU fic.

* * *

Brenda was already running an hour late by the time she stomped into the murder room that morning. A failed alarm clock (all right, three 'snoozes' and a pillow over her head), a broken hot water service and a distinct lack of clean clothes to wear had conspired to create an even more disgruntled and out of sorts Chief than was atypical for a Monday morning.

"Morning, Chief."

"Chief."

Waving down the less than half-hearted attempt at pleasantries, Brenda made a beeline for her office, desperately hoping not to get drawn into any pre-caffeinated conversation. (She'd once made the mistake of asking Mike what he put in his coffee that had him so bright-eyed and bushy-tailed at 7.30am on a Monday morning. "Pure green beans. But you have to get the organic kind - the potency of the over-the-counter stuff is nowhere near as good. You know I have a friend who could hook you up. His shop's not far from here but he only speaks Cantonese, so unless -" Suffice it to say, she knew better than to bring it up again.)

She felt her phone vibrate somewhere in the depths of her bag, but before she had a chance to reach for it –

"Oh!"

She jumped as Will stepped out from behind the door to her office. Honestly, the man should know better than to accost her without at least having the decency to bring coffee. Or a donut. A donut would have been really good right about now. "I thought our meeting was at nine thirty."

"It's nine forty-five." She dropped her bag on the desk and flopped unceremoniously into her chair, reaching for her candy drawer before her companion had even sat down. "Bad morning?"

"The worst," she replied, wrestling with the wrapper of a Kit Kat bar. Not a donut, but still. "D'you know I haven't had a hot shower in four days? Four days, Will. They get better treatment in Folsom."

"Heartbreaking. Listen, we have a situation that I need you to take care of."

"Please, not another dead soap actress. I swear, awards season gets worse every year."

"We should be so lucky. The 'Aloha Bandits' ring any bells?"

_Aloha bandits. Aloha -_

"Weren't they the ones Hollywood were chasing?" she asked through a mouthful of chocolate. She had a vague recollection of Provenza waving black and white stills of gunmen in matching Hawaiian shirts in front of her in sheer amusement. "Robbed a string of credit unions?"

"Yeah, emphasis on the chasing."

"You're kidding."

"Unfortunately for us the illustrious Mr Ramos has cottoned onto the ah-"

"Complete ineptitude of Capt'n Manning and his division?"

"-ongoing nature of our investigation," Pope finished. "Which means the Chief is now also aware, and why I am reassigning it to you."

"What? No. No no no."

"Oh yes. Yes yes yes."

"Will, we already have two open investigations-"

"Major Crimes will work with Robbery-Homicide-"

"and we're going to trial next week on the Bryant case-"

"And report hourly-"

"Hourly?"

"-until such time as this is resolved. This case is now your number one priority. Do I make myself clear?"

She frowned. "Crystal. Sir."

Will's eyes narrowed in suspicion but he held his tongue as he rose from the visitor's seat. Brenda slumped back into her own chair. As if this was ever going to go any other way.

"About your hot water problem," he said, leaning in the doorjamb. "I have a guy…" He waved his hand in what she supposed was meant as a conciliatory gesture.

"Oh. Thank you, Will, that's-" not going to mean squat when she was stuck at headquarters for the next forty-eight hours trying to sort out this mess? "- kind of you. Thank you."

"Yeah, well I can't promise anything but I'll have him call you."

She smiled tightly, waiting for him to leave her in peace. Great. Another Hollywood bungle. Honestly, why they hadn't transferred Manning and put someone more competent in charge was beyond her. Then again, they'd probably want Flynn or Provenza in his stead and she wasn't quite ready to face the prospect of losing either one of them this morning.

Placing her bag on the floor behind her desk, Brenda withdrew her cellphone to once again read the message she'd received at half six this morning.

_We need to talk. Dinner at my place tonight. _

Brenda frowned. Even her text messages were bossy. With a small huff she set the phone down amongst the mountains of paperwork on her desk. Okay, so maybe it wasn't just the hot water service bothering her this morning. Things with Sharon weren't exactly going according to the script. Oh sure, Friday night had started out well enough – dinner at a small Italian restaurant Sharon was rather fond of, a good bottle of Chianti and then on to the latest Woody Allen film – but somehow they'd ended up in a spectacular blowout and she'd wound up with no popcorn and a forty dollar taxi fare from the Beverley Center.

Since then she hadn't heard a peep from the woman, which she supposed wasn't that unusual, what with her still sulking and all, but that message… well two ex-husbands told her nothing good ever came from the words 'we need to talk'.

Reaching for her handset, Brenda dialed the familiar extension. It diverted to her mobile and then to voicemail. Typical.

"_You've reached the phone of Sharon Raydor. If your call is regarding an emergency, please dial 911. Otherwise, please leave your name, number and brief message and I'll get back to you as soon as possible. Thank you." _

_BEEEEEEP_

"What kind of a person diverts their phone to their cell if they're not goin' to answer it?" Brenda groused, winding the cord around her index finger. "And what d'you mean 'we need to talk'? We talk all the- oh, hang on a minute. Yes, Detective?"

She placed her hand over the receiver, making a half-hearted attempt to cover the mouthpiece. Gabriel shifted uneasily in the open doorway.

"Sergeant Weaver from Robbery just dropped off like eight hundred boxes and said you'd know what it's about."

"Unfortunately. I'll be with y'all in a moment." She shooed him out of the office and turned her attention back to the receiver. "Anyway dinner's fine but we just caught a case – well technically it's Robbery-Homicide's but we're stuck cleanin' it up and – never mind. Just call me when you get this. It's Brenda, by the way. Johnson."

She slammed down the receiver and peered out through the open vertical blinds. Sure enough, archive boxes had been deposited smack bang in the middle of her murder room, stacked three deep and four high.

With a grimace Brenda lucky-dipped in her candy drawer once more before spinning to face the window. She smiled in relief when she realised what she'd landed on. The creme de la creme of snackcakes: a Ding Dong. Almost ritualistically, she lifted the treat to inhale its rich, dark aroma through the tinfoil wrapping. She moaned softly. So much better than a Kit Kat.

"Ah Chief?"

Her eyes popped open and guiltily she swung back around to face Gabriel. He cocked an impatient eyebrow. She felt a flush steal across her cheeks.

"Yes yes, all right, Detective. I'm comin'."

Reluctantly, Brenda tossed the Ding Dong back into drawer before following him back out into the murder room. Chocolate – and everything else, it seemed - would have to wait.

_To be continued…_

* * *

_As always, your feedback is appreciated. Thank you for reading! _


	2. Chapter 2

A/N: Nope haven't abandoned this one, though you may wish I had. Confession time: I needed somewhere to channel all the major Brenda/Sharon feels I've been having lately, and since Chemistry is _kicking my ass_, this is where it ended up. Apologies in advance for the butchering of the English language; this one's all on me, kids.

* * *

Several hours and an utterly useless briefing later, Brenda slunk into the break room in hopes that caffeine - and possibly some of those gummy bears Buzz had squirreled away behind the box of sugar sticks - might offer the clarity she was lacking, because the case? Total disaster. Between the ineptitude and disorganization of Robbery-Homicide and Taylor parading around like one of those puffed up birds of paradise, she had little hope for wrapping this up by the end of the day. At best she'd have the investigation back on track and that wouldn't be nearly enough to avoid the morning news cycle if their friend Mr Ramos had anything to say about it. She couldn't begin to fathom what they'd been doing for the past three months, but it certainly hadn't been anything resembling detective work. She had half a mind to suggest to Sharon that IA do a little detecting of their own.

Although that would require the woman to actually answer her phone. Or return any one of the calls she'd made over the past few hours.

Bristling with irritation, Brenda reached for one of the monogrammed LAPD mugs Will tried to insist they only use for visitors and stepped up to the sink to give it a quick rinse out. She could accept that Sharon was miffed with her, but this was bordering on plain rude. What if it had been something important? Like a murder? Or – or the vending machine had fallen on her? Yes, what if she'd been pinned underneath the vending machine, and there was no-one else around and…and she could reach her phone, but it was low on battery because she'd lost her charger and there was only enough power for one call, _one call_ and she stupidly decided to waste it on Sharon instead of dialing 911? What then?

Wasn't Sharon the one who'd told her more people died in vending machine-related accidents than shark attacks?

Frankly it was just irresponsible.

"Too early for your afternoon chocolate fix?"

She looked up from her now pristine mug to find Andy Flynn offering her a lop-sided grin and the coffee pot.

"Somethin' like that."

He filled the outstretched vessel with acrid brown liquid, shaking his head as she wasted no time in heaping three teaspoons of sugar and a sachet of creamer into it. Satisfied, she leant back against the counter, blowing at the steaming contents before taking a sip. She winced as the coffee scalded her tongue.

"What's on your mind, Chief?" She raised a quizzical brow. "I haven't seen you mainline this much sugar since… you know."

Brenda grimaced inwardly. _The divorce. _Six months later and they were still tiptoeing around her like she might collapse into a weeping mess at the barest mention of her now very ex-husband. Probably didn't help that they still had to work with him on what felt like an increasingly frequent basis. Luckily though he was off 'growing' in DC - or whatever it was people did on professional development stints. She exhaled heavily.

"Y'ever have one of those arguments – you know, the ones where you get so mad you could spit blood, only you don't know why you started fightin' in the first place?" Flynn chuckled. "What?"

"Well you know what they say, Chief." When she didn't reply straight away he leant across the island bench and flashed a lecherous smile. "Making up is half the fun."

Brenda felt colour flood her cheeks. Oh. _Oh_. That wasn't what – she hadn't meant to imply –

She set her mug down on the counter, but before she had a chance to correct Andy's assumption Buzz appeared in the doorway.

"There you are Lieutenant," he said, flustered and fretful as always. "Lieutenant Provenza asked me to find you; they've got an ID on one of the robbers."

"Yeah okay, tell him to keep his shirt on. Chief?"

She took one last sip of the now sickeningly sweet beverage before tipping the remainder down the drain. It wasn't helping as much as she'd hoped anyway.

"You go on, I've got something I need to deal with first."

She waited until he had disappeared around the corner before retrieving her phone. She tapped her foot impatiently as she listened to the dial tone ring once, twice, three times -

"_You've reached the phone of Sharon Raydor. If your call is regarding an emergency –"_

_Dammit._

* * *

There was, Brenda mused, flashing her access pass at the not-quite-napping security guard, something about the eleventh floor that never failed to set her teeth on edge. Not that she would have expected Internal Affairs to be sunshine and rose gardens, but there was a sterility to the floor that reminded her all too well of her stint in Langley. Or the morgue.

She held the card up against the electronic reader and after a moment the frosted glass doors slid open with a soft whoosh. She felt eight sets of eyes land on her and, in a fleeting moment of self-consciousness, smoothed the soft grey wool over her hips; glad for the cashmere skirt suit she'd chosen that morning. (Of course the hibiscus pink pumps she'd paired it with were a little less inconspicuous but a girl had to have her concessions.)

Satisfied that she at least looked the part, even if she didn't feel it, Brenda strode out into the FID bullpen with feigned nonchalance, amused at how terribly obvious Sharon's team of secret squirrels really were. (Even Lieutenant Provenza had more sense than to sit around gawping like a codfish.) The open-plan office would have been on par with that of her own division if not for the compactuses that lined the walls: the stainless steel cabinets blocked what could have been an enviable view of the downtown cityscape, reducing the space by at least a third and creating the oppressive sense of working in an underground bunker. She'd felt almost sorry for her fellow officers, having to work in such a claustrophobic environment, except for the fact that they were IA and therefore not worth a lick of salt between them.

Except for Sharon, of course.

Predictably, the Captain's office was down the farthest end of the floor, tucked away between a little used conference room and the janitor's closet. Truth be told the first time she'd come up here she'd thought it _was_ the janitor's closet: besides the fact that it was less than half the size of her own office (she was fairly confident she could have stood in the centre of the room and touched both walls with her arms outstretched), it was a grim little space, one which even Sharon's WASPish aesthetics were powerless to address. The overhead neons perpetually flickered; the two-seater couch upholstered in a burnt orange fabric she was fairly certain had been recalled as a fire hazard back in the early eighties. Even the line of well-tended pot plants did little to obscure the barred view of the fire escape. It was no wonder Sharon chose to spend so much time of her time loitering around Major Crimes.

Without bothering to knock, Brenda marched up to the door and grabbed the handle.

Locked.

She jiggled it again, this time more forcefully.

Definitely locked.

She let out a small huff of irritation. What kind of person was paranoid enough to lock their office when they practically had their own armored guard sitting out front? Oh who was she kidding; this was Sharon she was talking about. The woman probably slept with her sidearm tucked under her pillow.

Rising up on her tippy-toes, Brenda peered in at the window, trying to see through the gaps in the tightly drawn blinds.

"Can I help you, Chief?"

She spun around, schooling her expression as she came face to face with a thin balding man. A natty brown suit hung limply off his wiry frame, giving him a distinctly rodent-like quality. "Oh, ah –"

"Elliot, ma'am."

"'Course," she replied, remembering the name as one Sharon had mentioned in passing. He seemed sort of familiar, she reflected, trying not to wince at the striped salmon tie he was sporting. What was it with men in this building and ugly ties? "I was just lookin' for Capt'n Raydor."

"She's not in," he said, eyes flitting towards the office door. "Is there something I can help you with?"

"Well when will she be back?"

"Not until tomorrow." He eyes her warily. "Chief, if there's something you need –"

"Where is she?"

"She's taken the afternoon."

"Why?" Elliot folded his arms across his chest. Brenda mirrored his action. "Now, Detective."

"It's p-p-personal," he finally stuttered, crumpling faster than a ten dollar bill. "She's taken a personal day."

"I see."

"Chief?"

Pointedly ignoring him, Brenda slung her bag over her shoulder and stalked back towards the glass barricade. _Personal_. What on earth could be so important Sharon had to take a personal day? She couldn't even think of the last time she'd taken a personal day. Her wedding, prob'ly. And that was only because Fritzy had made her. She hadn't taken one of her own volition since – since ever. Not when she found out she might have cancer. Not when Fritzy had left her. Not even when Kitty had died.

Oh Kitty. Poor, poor Kitty.

She was thrusting coins into the vending machine before she realized what she was doing.

Brenda slid down to the floor, her back propped up against the machine as she tore at the candy wrapper with her teeth. She sniffled and sucked a fleck of chocolate from her thumb. It wasn't a Hershey bar she should be talking to. And it wasn't Kitty that had gotten her so upset. It was that woman.

It was _always_ that woman.

She'd forced her way into her life, smirk-first, and now the prospect of losing her…

Brenda pulled out her phone, taking a large bite of chocolate while she listened to the voicemail greeting once again.

"Hi, it's me again. I'm sorry about before. I-I shouldn't have snapped like that. You said you wanted to talk an' I s'pose I do too, it's just – well I can't get my head straight. Ev'rything's all messed up and you're the person I normally talk to about this sort of stuff an' you're not here an'-"

She took a fortifying breath, swiping at the corner of her eye with the heel of her hand.

"Anyway I just wanted to apologise, and to let you know I won't be able to make it to dinner after all. That case I mentioned - well it looks like it's gonna be a while before we wrap things up. But if you're free later on maybe I can come by for dessert. I-I mean with dessert. Oh for heaven's sake. Just call me when you get this. Okay, bye."

She sniffled a little before taking another bite of chocolate. What on earth was wrong with her?

People didn't get like this over friendships, did they?

And okay, maybe they'd become closer friends than she'd expected, specially considering they still spent half their time squabbling over this and that, but it wasn't like they were dating or anything.

Were they?

They did spend an awful lot of time together, especially this past month or so. Dinners and movies and that weird zombo or zumba or whatever whatchamacallit class Sharon had insisted on dragging her along to –

She broke off another piece of the chocolate bar, this time letting it dissolve on her tongue as she mulled over the situation. Okay, so maybe they were more than friends. Best friends then. After all, she wouldn't prance around in lycra for just anybody. And maybe somewhere in the back of her mind she enjoyed the attention it brought either. (She wasn't blind; she saw the way Sharon sometimes looked at her. It was the same expression she herself wore when she was daydreaming about eating her bodyweight in chocolate.) She just wasn't...that way. She'd never so much as been attracted to another woman, let alone thought about dating one. Or kissing one. Or…whatever it was they did to one another.

She felt a hot flush steal down across her décolletage at the images her mind conjured.

Okay, maybe she had thought about it. Once or twice. But an occasional hug or kiss didn't mean they were anything more than friends. (Even if those hugs did linger a little longer than was probably appropriate. And those kisses had migrated from cheeks to lips somewhere around the same time she'd updated her speed-dial.)

She wolfed down the last piece of chocolate, licking her fingers clean. And besides, even if Sharon _was_ attracted to her, that didn't mean she wanted anything more than friendship. Two failed marriages and enough emotional baggage to warrant her own Dr Phil episode; she wasn't exactly a prize catch. Not that Sharon was anybody's kewpie doll either; just because she had a voice she could charge a dollar fifty a minute for, didn't make her any less ornery. Fact was they were just as awful as each other and entirely incompatible. It was no wonder Sharon wanted to 'talk' (even in her head that came with air quotes): it was obviously time to clear the air about all this.

Or maybe she wanted to break it off altogether. Their friendship, that is.

Brenda let out a small, frustrated sigh and scrunched up the chocolate wrapper. If this was what it was like to date a woman then maybe she didn't want any part of it anyway.

"Chief, there you are."

The sharpness of Gabriel's address snapped her back to the present. Guiltily, she accepted the hand he offered and allowed herself to be pulled her feet. If he was at all fazed by her state of disarray he didn't show it. "There's been another robbery."

"At-?"

"The Memorial on Wilshire," he finished, "just like you said. Only…"

She drew her eyebrows together in consternation. "Only what?"

"Robbery-Homicide weren't exactly in place yet."

"Meaning what?"

"They may have spooked the guys."

"But they brought them in."

"Not exactly." He thrust his hands into his pockets. Oh, that was not a good sign. "Yeah, they have hostages."

"_Hostages?_ How on earth did this go from Hawaii 5-0 to _hostages_? Ooh, can't y'all do anything without supervision? Honestly."

She snatched up her bag and slung it over her shoulder. Jesus, Mary and Joseph – how was she going to explain this to Will?

"I'm sorry Chief," Gabriel said, giving her that kicked puppy-dog face she'd been seeing more and more of lately. She grimaced. As easy as it would be to take out her ire on him, she wasn't about to waste a good verbal lashing she could be saving for Lieutenants Flynn and Provenza.

"Yes, well no use crying over spilt Malibu." She gave her ponytail a tug for good measure. "All right, Detective, let's go catch us some bandits."

_To be continued… _


End file.
